The Bilgorai Horse

(Mierzinky - Schweiken)

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The Bilgorai horse is one of the equine races that are
counted among the smaller Polish horses named “mierzinky”.
These horses managed to survive from the prehistoric times in the remote
areas, far from railroads and distanced from the more intensive
agricultures, hence they retained a relative pure form of the wild type.
Prawochenski
also states, that one of the reason why these horses managed to survive
till this day was their small size, which saved them from the military
requisitions. The pupils of professor Prawochenski, engineers
Grabovsky
and S. Z. Zach measured and described these horses in which the
professors Vetulani and Antonius saw the remnants of domesticated
ancestors of the forest tarpans, whose last herd survived in the Zamoysky
region. Even the old name tarpan was preserved here for these little
horses. According to Grabovsky and
Zach’s measurements the
average height of these horses is/was 130 to 135 cm. The heads are
relatively heavy with large dark eyes, but wide and often bulged forehead
and in the nose part thin; hence the tarpan
type is hereby visually noticeable. The neck is short, strong, a little
withers, back is straight, relatively wide and well tied in loins to the
pelvis which is somewhat short and slanted; the legs are dry, the front
stand often toed out and the hind often cow hocked, the hoof is strong.
The typical color of the Bilgorais is yellowish gray or gray with a dark
stripe the length of the back. Less often can be seen a dark brown, brown
or chestnut. The power of these little horses in the pull/draft is
remarkable.

The more northern type of these horses
are/were bred in Lithuania known as “shmudzim”, which are
somewhat taller than Bilgorais, 140 cm tall, more of muscularly rounded
shapes, but in the head more refined than the Bilgorais.